Life is a journey….come join me on mine

INSANITY

The day Wednesday 27 August the time 17.15. A sweet looking young lady by the name of Tanya posted an innocent message that went something like this

‘Hello fitties!

I run Insanity classes in Fulham, Putney & Hammersmith London and would love to invite some health & fitness bloggers to come do a class. I’d love to have you so please do get in touch.

Thanks a bunch.. T’

That was swiftly followed by a message from fellow health blogger BeiFit that read

‘Oh would love that!! What do you say Danielle aka ThisWomansWord and Monica aka The Baking BodyBuilder?’

Me being me, I immediately accepted the challenge but unfortunately Team Cap Dani was unable to make it this time round (we missed you Sarg). After a little investigating, low and behold, to my glee, I found out there was a class the following evening in Hammersmith……IT WAS ON!!!

Now for those of you that know INSANITY is a cardio-based total-body conditioning program based on the principles of MAX Interval Training and is most famous for being one of the top-selling 60 day home workout DVD programs of all time with nearly 2 million DVDs sold. IMPRESSIVE!!!

On arrival, we were greeted by the lovely Tanya, a very energetic, smiley, slip of a woman….she looked completely harmless to say the least. There were others in the class that, unlike us, knew better. They made innocent inquiries as to whether we had ‘TRAINED INSANE’ with INSANITY before to which we declared ‘NO’……communication ceased after this point!! Nothing could have prepared us for what came next.

The class lasted for 50 minutes and was broken into sections; the warm up, stretch, three blocks of interval training, abs/core section and a cool down. Five minutes into the warm up the sweat began to drip from my body and pool onto the floor. Unlike traditional HIIT workouts (see: What is this Tabata about?) that feature short bursts of maximum intensity with longer periods of rest, INSANITY flips that formula upside-down trading short intervals of intensity for short periods of rest. But like HIIT, intensity is key, every interval must be performed with 100% effort and 100% effort is what we gave….otherwise the sweet and innocent Tanya was hot on our tails.

The workout consisted of high impact, high energy moves that could be adapted to suit individual fitness levels and abilities which was handy really!!! Its no wonder that you can burn up to 1000 calories in a 50 minute class!! Yes that is right you read correctly, I said 1000 calories.

I will admit that the class was hard but any program that produces the body-transforming results of INSANITY is going to be. I mean look at these faces, do they look like the faces of the tortured ;0)

Tanya our Insanity Instructor was amazing. A ball of positivity and unadulterated energy, never faltering offering words of encouragement throughout. When we felt like giving up she came to our sides and worked with us. She possesses all the skills and attributes of an outstanding instructor. She is truly dedicated and without a doubt loves what she does..an inspiration.

Is INSANITY for you?

If you have always wanted to try the INSANITY fitness program but need the extra encouragement and motivation, would like to introduce a challenge to your current training program or just fancy something a little different, this is definitely for you. So go on give it a go.